


The Most Painful Companion

by RedFlagsAndDiamonds



Series: Blue Flower [3]
Category: Batman (Movies - Nolan), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Backstory, Character Study, Female Jewish Character, Guilt, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Underage Prostitution, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, Judgment, Kid Fic, Lifestyle Porn, Multi, Rachel Lives, Self-Hatred
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-16
Updated: 2018-03-16
Packaged: 2019-04-01 00:37:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13986702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedFlagsAndDiamonds/pseuds/RedFlagsAndDiamonds
Summary: A chance meeting with newlywed Selina forces Rachel to examine her past decisions.





	The Most Painful Companion

**Author's Note:**

> This is a direct follow-up to "Blue Flower." I recommend reading that one first for context.

 

 

_“Guilt is perhaps the most painful companion of death.”_

\- Coco Chanel

 

* * *

 

 

Washington D.C. mornings leaned a little more to the bright and cheery expectations illustrated in one of David’s many Berenstein Bear books, than the flame-colored sheen of sunlight illuminated on droplets of overnight rain that Rachel had become desensitized to while living under Gotham’s thumb. It was as though even the sunrises and early commuters were power-sprayed, polished up by stocking-foot cleaning staffers, and displayed in a neoclassical gilded frame – a clever maneuver in taste by Jackie O, so as to dodge the more overt symbolism of Roman dictatorship that positively abounded in the city which held itself as a monument to the land of the free.

Rachel loved her home, she really did.

The department store was already packed thirty minutes past opening time, and despite the availability of an under-utilized personal shopper that she paid handsomely to brave the elitist crowds for her, Rachel still insisted on taking these outings by herself. If one didn’t count the earpiece-wearing colossus always several paces behind her, but then, every other person under the mall’s impressive roof seemed to be accompanied by someone similar.

This was her life now; tailed at all times by armed private security while a Micronesian valet parked her spotless white Lincoln Navigator in a quite-possibly bombproof underground garage, while her three year old son dangled off her hand with all of his formidable baby-weight. Such was being a mother – or, at least, a mother on the President’s Christmas card list.

While Harvey’s nomination hadn’t come as a complete shock, his actual acceptance of the position _had_ – he’d made it clear from their first unofficial date at the bagel shop that his interests lay in inner-city work, not politics. There had been arguments and tears, one shattered bathroom mirror, and two nights on the pullout couch respectively before Rachel had succumbed. They’d put their signatures to the lease, she had installed her mother in a Charming Little retirement community in northern Virginia, and Harvey had sailed through the Senate hearings before securing a landslide confirmation that surprised no one. It was only afterward that the reality of their situation began to make itself obvious – there was nothing to clear your head quite like two extremely scary Federal agents inviting themselves into your foyer, and presenting your husband with instructions on exactly when and where to go in the event of nuclear Armageddon.

Not exactly the Welcome Wagon.

However, once the dust had settled from the move and the senatorial circus, they had done their best to scoop up the shards and make something like a traditional home life.

Although whether they had succeeded or not was anyone’s guess, Rachel considered sardonically, as her little boy whined in growing boredom while she fitted the third pair of Stella McCartney Velcro-fastening sneakers onto his tiny feet, pressing at his toes with her fingers to check that there was room for growth. Because she’d rather he looked back on shopping for shoes and getting street-vendor doughnuts with his mother than seeing his father’s interviews on CNN, and assuming by the time he was an elementary student that this was the usual way of things.

David had been born two months after they’d left Gotham behind, and it was at five AM as Harvey was driving them home from the hospital, glancing constantly to the backseat in unmistakable, utterly endearing terror, when Rachel had momentarily been able to set aside her own crippling anxiety and consider that perhaps it had all been for the best. Despite the unavoidable drawbacks of effectively being raised in a bubble, they could at least rest easy knowing that their son would (most likely) be able to drink formula free of cocaine poisoning, play with other children whose parents had no immediate affiliations with the mob, and attend his first day of Kindergarten without worry that the school bus would go up in a shower of napalm.

Or that, one day, his mother’s best friend from childhood might look at him with something much more profound and unsettling than avuncular affection.

But it was easier to breathe when she didn’t think about that.

 

David had started whining, a sure sign that they were reaching the late morning crisis point when breakfast was starting to wear off, and he couldn’t understand why Mommy wouldn’t hurry up and let them leave. Sighing, Rachel let him down from his perch on her hip, and without a pause he began wandering in wide, aimless circles – harmless as long as she or the agent kept an eye on him, but there were times when she wondered about investing in a harness and leash.

After she’d been handed back the credit card – even after three years, the charges that someone of her newfound stature was expected to accrue for two pairs of childrens’ sneakers could make her head spin like discarded footage of Linda Blair– with the assurances that the items would be shipped to the penthouse in under two hours and the usual degree of kiss-assery, yes madam, certainly, anything else we can possibly assist you with, she began the brief hunt for her child among the tastefully bare clothing racks (because Heaven forbid that a customer’s gaze be offended with anything so crass as merchandise.)

“Davey?”

“Mmm…”

That little, throaty murmur was as familiar as breathing by this point, David’s instinctive response to gripping his mother close, but the lack of tiny arms gripping her hand or knee coupled with an unfamiliar, embarrassed cough left her feeling unpleasantly disoriented.

“Davi-“

“’Think you’ve got the wrong target, kid.” a tart voice muttered somewhere nearby, one that was only heard normally on Vanity Fair interviews and The View, never in real life, and with a flutter of her eyelids ( _please, God, now is not a good time, just let me eat street food with my son to hold off the lunchtime tantrum and I’ll be quiet the rest of the day, promise_ ) Rachel slowly, dreadingly turned towards the exit of the childrens’ department.

Right there, in that ten by thirty strip of pink quartz tile that separated women’s cosmetics and additional husband-keeping aids from the germ and jelly-ridden trappings of their little angels, three-year old David – his world populated entirely by a forest of legs, each barely distinguishable from the others – had clamped his plump little arms around a leather-shod knee which, as far as he was aware, had as much chance of belonging to his mother as anyone else’s.

At any other time, in any other universe – had it been any other woman – perhaps Rachel would have laughed it off. Her own dark suede trousers weren’t exactly dissimilar, it was an easy mistake for a toddler to commit, and maybe the accosted woman would have shared a couple of reasonably comical incidents about her own tiny terrors. But they lived in a cruel, ironic, imperfect world, and among all the traits that society had come to expect from her – stylish, shallow, slutty, in all, a perfect feminine counterpart to her husband – no one would ever accuse Mrs. Wayne of being maternal.

 

*

 

"Want in?"

At Rachel's shake of the head, Selina shrugged unconcernedly and snapped shut a cigarette case that, for all Rachel knew, could very well be real platinum. The tip of a Marlboro flared briefly as she lit up, and immediately began sucking as though she hoped it would produce crack cocaine.

The mall courtyard was a lovely extended pavilion of glowing white marble, ornamented with intriguing modern statuary that had no doubt been donated by various charitable trusts and foundations in a self-serving show of generosity.

David splashed happily at the elongated infinity fountain, temporarily distracted while both women sat quietly under the umbrella shade of a sleek patio table, and pretended to ignore each other’s roaring thoughts.

It was difficult to forget the Friday that every gossip blogger in Gotham City had started their morning with overactive speculation on Bruce Wayne’s abrupt departure for some unpronounceable island in the Maldives, ostensibly for a sex-filled weekend of fun with hitherto unknown heiress Selina Kyle.

Difficult as, roughly twelve hours earlier, as Rachel recalled it, he had all but admitted to her face that he was sexually involved with his dependent ward.

But the internet had remained happily unaware of this fact, and if website traffic had been high before, then a hole had practically been burned through the blogosphere when the happy couple returned from their tropical love nest three days later, a diamond the size of a walnut adorning Selina’s finger. Though some skeptics had argued to contrary until they were blue in the face, all doubts as to their relationship had been banished when she appeared at the Arts Benefit Gala wearing the long-late Martha Wayne’s pearls, and the trust-fund daughters of the Great Lakes region were forced to mourn the loss of Gotham’s most eligible bachelor.

For now, pearls and diamonds were nowhere in sight, but Selina dazzled the eye anyway, as she was meant to, whether shopping for couture or posing on Santa’s lap with one stiletto kicked up at the Wayne Foundation Christmas parade. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough Russian mink and Chanel Rouge in the world to cover up her lower Gotham accent, and not for the first time – with uncharacteristic nastiness born of disgust and heartbreak– Rachel wondered which back alley fire Bruce had discovered her huddled around.

“Aren’t you going to ask?” Selina unexpectedly broke the silence, a pungent billow of smoke escaping her reddened lips.

She rolled her eyes skyward, mentally counting down several seconds.

“I was hoping I wouldn’t have to.”

“Mm. Maybe he is a sore subject, but let’s be honest, what else is there in my life to discuss?”

Soirees. The Palisades Side-Saddle Equestrienne club. A (rumored) newly founded nonprofit intended to benefit Gotham’s low income sex work population. Fucking late night television. Anything.

“Are you expecting sympathy?” Rachel muttered, picking at a bit of flaking nail polish.

A doll-like pair of brown eyes fixed her with a glare that would have turned Lot’s wife to salt.

“I know you believe I’m an opportunist, Mrs. Dent, but do you really think I deserve moral judgment for making certain I’ll never go hungry, especially from a woman raised by an unmarried conservative Jewish mother who cleaned someone else’s house until her daughter could work three jobs to get through law school? Don’t stare – the hubby tends to talk after several shots too many.”

It would be easy, so easy just to lunge for her throat, if only children weren’t in the immediate vicinity.

Rachel tightened her jaw. Counted to ten once more.

“… I didn’t know he indulged.”

The Marlboro was only half-finished, but Selina dropped it to the marble tile anyway, crushing it neatly under a suede platform boot before lighting up a second.

“There’ve been a few changes since you left. I don’t care, he can do what he wants with his time, provided he never shows any inclination to state his virility by getting me pregnant. Bacardi and a strap-on not withstanding.”

They continued pretending to watch David and other chubby toddlers racing along the fountain’s edge, unknowing and uncaring of the repulsive truths faced by adult life. What a time to be alive.

“I guess it’s difficult to understand,” Rachel finally spat out, the last traces of civility gone, “why any woman with even an ounce of self-respect would knowingly tie herself to a… someone like him, for the sake of a few designer labels and a Jaguar-“

“Money’s not a good motive until you really understand it’s value. I never had the luxury of somebody tucking me in at night and kissing me on the forehead, I had to duck beer bottles until I learned how to capitalize on what I had to get what I needed – and if that was sucking a judge’s cock or pocketing his wife’s rubies, who cared, as long as it kept me fed. I don’t get to pick and choose based on morality, like you, I’ve stayed alive by doing whatever needs to be done – and if a rich freak wants me to provide a live-in alibi purely by taking advantage of his bank account, who am I to refuse?”

Rachel shook her head disbelievingly.

“God, how do you sleep at night –“

“About as well as you do. Maybe I married him, okay, clearly I’m not all there, but let’s not forget who obviously couldn’t bring herself to turn him in. Pretty humiliating for an ADA, huh? What was it? Still just that little bit too in love to watch justice take it’s course?-”

“I don’t need to sit here and-!”

“There you are.” A new voice mewed somewhere behind them, the kind that Rachel had never heard outside of those sickening deep-web video files she’d occasionally been forced to watch for purposes of prosecution, where naked prepubescent girls in dog collars sucked their thumbs and cooed for Daddy.

Back then she’d just wanted to bathe and drink heavily. Coupled with recent associations, the memory alone was now enough to make her gag.

“Got a bit sidetracked, sorry.”

Unapologetically stamping out another perfectly good cigarette, Selina rose in a waft of vanilla-scented salon conditioner to greet her companion, a girl who didn’t look a day over twenty. Her long-sleeved bodysuit was patterned as though Michelangelo had thrown up all over it, and the holes spotting her gold spike-studded jeans were shredded so carelessly that the back-alley garment could only have been worth Rachel’s former yearly salary.

Both women linked arms, the little blonde suckling loudly at the straw in her frapp, before Selina appeared to have the presence of mind to glance backwards.

“You know, in retrospect, maybe he saw something of himself in me. We both just wanna protect something we love.”

Finally, they clacked away, snuggled close, leaving Rachel to sit in the sunshine wallowing in anger and self-hatred, until her son came running over to cheerily present her with a Dutch tulip he’d plucked from a nearby flowerbed.

 

*

 

Concluding the final few lines of “Froggy Eats Out” took a bit longer than expected, mainly because David insisted on making that oh-so addictive “ssssslllllllurppp” sound effect whenever she paused for breath, but ultimately Froggy and his long-suffering parents went to a diner, Rachel petted back David’s floppy straw-colored hair to nuzzle her lips over his cheek, and quietly escaped the room while a porcelain music box with a sweet-eyed owl plopped on the lid crooned Brahm’s lullaby.

There was a lot that Rachel insisted on doing herself, but after the non-abating tension of the day, being able to ask one of the uniformed housemaids for a ham sandwich almost came as a physical relief.

Normally the desk alcove in the study provided a sense of escape, but as she settled into the plush exec chair and booted up the Mac out of habit, the cherry wood shelves loaded with law tomes almost seemed to laughing derisively. The open Document window stared back at her, the text bar winking expectantly, as if daring her to type one more word in her masterwork of hypocrisy.

She’d had the idea years before, while still clawing her way up to the DA’s office through a mire of infighting, conflicts of interest, and underhanded dealing; every single one of them embroiled up to their necks in corruption, or offering hand-patting condescension to the little cutie with her adorable – outdated - sense of ethics and ideals.

Many in the Legal community had immediately begun pointing fingers when she resigned from the workforce post-marriage, ready to question the true values of a woman who had campaigned for the rights of working mothers, but Rachel had borne the judgment and snide commentary with smug anticipation of the day they recognized themselves – if not their names – in a full exposé of the long rumored inner workings of Gotham’s political machine.

After nearly six years of work, the manuscript now amassed eight hundred and twenty-three pages, and was barely half finished.

Rachel stared back at the screen, the bluish-glow illuminating the lamp-lit room, and felt like a perjured witness.

 

_“What was it? Still just that little bit too in love to watch justice take it’s course?”_

 

Her eyes fluttered shut, fingers curling over her mouth until the nausea passed.

It had been years, almost a decade since she’d entertained thoughts like that. Once the known world had accepted that Bruce had died ignominiously in some heroin den, she’d pushed on with her life, her career. Met Harvey. Been happy. Supposedly. Then he came back, and she’d become comfortable with the idea that he was nothing more than a childhood crush, and successfully considered him a friend in adulthood.

And had he been anyone else at all, she knew in her gut that she would have padlocked his cell herself, and thrown the key into the river.

Elbows braced on the desk, she leaned forward and rubbed both hands at her cheekbones.

A shrink would probably tell her that it would be best if she could unload the massive strain of self-hatred and guilt onto someone else’s shoulders, but she had no interest in damaging her marriage or the respect she’d attained in her chosen vocation. Selfish maybe, but that was how Gotham raised it’s children.

Dammit, she wanted her mother. Wanted to curl beside her and be held while lined fingers stroked her hair, knowing it was out of the question on several levels. Shoshana Dawes still struggled with the fact that her daughter had married a gentile and blithely fed her son bacon for breakfast – informing her that the little boy she’d made pancakes for, alongside her own child, now fit under a particularly ugly definition… well, Rachel had fielded enough disappointment from that corner already.

The familiar rattle of the stained-glass panes in the front door snapped her out of her sulk, and she noticed with a bit of alarm that almost two hours had passed since she sat down – Georgia, the housekeeper, had even managed to slip in unnoticed, and left the ham and lettuce loaded sandwich, as well as an unrequested bottle of Sam Adams (smart girl) resting on an unfolded TV tray beside the desk. Rachel couldn’t recall hearing a thing.

“ _’Evening, Mr. Dent –“_

Georgia’s voice drifted from the foyer, alongside a rustle of fabric as a coat and duffel bag were handed over, and in a sudden rush of (temporarily) unwarranted guilt, Rachel lunged for her late dinner, layers of French bread, provolone and tomato crunching between her teeth.

_“Thanks – is she still up?”_

_“In the office.”_

Still munching at an ambitious mouthful, she quickly turned her attention back to the computer, and managed to convey what she hoped was an air of diligent concentration by the time the study door creaked open, and Harvey’s lips pressed to the top of her head.

“You’re home early.”

“It was a light day – no one decided to sue the federal government for once –“

He peeled off his blazer, draping it over a side table before he dropped into the armchair opposite the desk – the one she had maneuvered there for that exact purpose, because despite all logic, she liked the company. Liked to listen to him complain about a job he excelled at while she fought back against malevolence in her own quiet way, with written word. Liked to share late night coffee from the Keurig by the fireplace, like they had in the old days at the DA office, whenever they had a stone-hard case to crack, and needed to pull all-nighters. Now it occasionally became a necessity if they wanted to see and speak to each other for more than a couple of hours each day – Assistant Attorney Generals weren’t exactly allowed to dictate their own schedules – but she had no desire to complain…

 

_“What was it? Still just that little bit too in love to watch justice take it’s course?”_

 

Almost reflexively, Rachel threw herself out of her seat and directly into her husband’s lap, as if by focusing on the way his hair felt between her fingers and her tongue in his mouth, she could block out Selina Wayne’s sarcastic little purr.

“Something I said?” Harvey rasped once he’d managed to extricate himself from the lip lock, though the dilated pupils gave him away.

“Dave’s in bed, and it’s only ten-thirty -” she mumbled, unknotting his tie and grazing her teeth across the skin of his throat in that way he could never fucking handle.

“- let’s act like newlyweds.”  
“Back to back episodes of the Twilight Zone and yelling at the TV?”

“Hilarious. Upstairs, now.”

 

*

 

Light day or not, Harvey was down for the count after round two.

Groaning quietly, Rachel scrubbed a hand violently over her face – her palm came away glistening with sweat – before tossing aside the covers as she gingerly crawled out of bed and let him sleep.

Despite the hour, she could still hear a fair amount of traffic in the distance when she slipped onto the balcony, wrapped up in a plush bathrobe. Government employees working late perhaps, given the district – and night shift doctors, kids called in behind the register at convenience stores, twenty-four hour diner waitresses with babies on the way. For the most part, law-abiding citizens trusting people of her ilk to keep their little world safe.

She sighed again. Her grip flexed on the iron railing.

Gullible idiots.

Ultimately, what were the options? She could uphold the law – as she’d sworn to do – but what would it gain, aside from her own ease of conscience? Another billionaire’s fall from grace, one more shred of Gotham’s faith in humanity lost, one spoiled teenager thrown back into the System, and a pair of destitute women back in the sinkhole of the streets…

Her heart broken all over again…

That damn hinge on the bedroom door suddenly squeaked, and as she turned light from the hallway spilled in through the crack-like opening, silhouetting a little figure in shark-printed pajamas.

“Mommy?”

“Shh –“ she hissed softly, creeping back into the room and catching the door before it could open any further.

David stood quietly, his small features twisting up in something like pain as she blinked against the hall light and closed the door behind her before squatting down on her knees.

“We’ve talked about this – “

“I had a bad dream -”

It was an over-used excuse, one that he trotted out whenever he thought he could con his way into staying up late, but judging by the tremors and the perspiration dotting his neck, this wasn’t an act. He cuddled up to her chest as she pulled him into a hug, shaking his head when she asked if he wanted to tell her about it.

“You’re safe in your house, I won’t let anything happen to you - ”

It was almost a rote recitation by now, but it suddenly felt like a stone had dropped into her gut as soon as the words came out, and with a rush of anger noticed the burn behind her eyes. No, not now, not here -

David’s soft baby lips brushed quaveringly against her earlobe.

“You’ll stop monsters?”

Rachel’s breath shuddered involuntarily, and she squeezed her son a bit closer, burying her face in his hair while she whispered, finally:

“Always.”

 

 


End file.
